Film Library
Dummy, 2007.

Original title: Kukla
Copyright: Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Ukraine, the Sota Cinema Group, 2007.
Format: feature short
Carrier: DVD
Color: color
Length: 32 min. 
Original language: Russian
English subtitles: yes

Film crew
Director: Kira Muratova
Script writer: Serhiy Chetvertkov and Yevhen Holubenko
Cinematographer: Volodymyr Pankov
Production design: Yevhen Holubenko
Sound: Yukhym Turetskyi
Producer: Oleh Kokhan

Film cast
Natalia Buzko, Oleksandra Svenska, Iakov Kucherevskyi, Leonid Kushnir, Yuriy Nevhamonnyi, Anatoliy Trukhin.

Synopsis
From the official film description: “This is Muratova’s take on the essence of happiness and different understandings thereof by different people. Is it morally justified to make a person happy for at least a couple of hours by lying to them and breaking all the basic moral norms?
“Dummy” is Muratova’s third feature short following her “Letter to America” (Pismo v Ameriku) and “Inquiries” (Spravki). As if continuing the themes of the two previous films the director creates yet another image of an extraordinary crime. This time around the evil-doer is a mysterious benefactor, with a mission to make happy a woman who earns her living as a street portrait-painter. The plot line is based on a collision of two evil intentions, one being more cunning that the other. A competition of the bad with the worse. Yet again Muratova focuses on theft, cheating, and deceit, when even a swindler can fall prey to swindling.

Ukrainian Film Club of Columbia University© 2015. For more information please contact Yuri Shevchuk